Clement Valla: Postcards from Google Earth

These surreal pictures by artist Clement Valla are taken from Google Earth. When the viewpoint is in just the right position, the program shows warped linear figures such as roads and bridges in its effort to convert 3D space to a 2D screen.

The manmade structures appear to be melting over the landscape, as if in a painting. According to Valla himself:

The images are screenshots from Google Earth with basic color adjustments and cropping. I am collecting these new typologies as a means of conservation--as Google Earth improves its 3D models, its terrain, and its satellite imagery, these strange, surrealist depictions of our built environment and its relation to the natural landscape will disappear in favor of better illusionistic imagery. However, I think these strange mappings of the 2-dimensional and the 3-dimensional provide us with fabulous forms that are purely the result of algorithmic processes and not of human aesthetic decision making. They are artifacts worth preserving.